Ok, my friend that, owns a nice pro studio, were a lot of famous rock bands record their drums(like foo fighters, Jimi Eat World, Sheryl Crow etc.)anyways, he's letting me use his tracking room to record my drummer for free. The problem is that I only have 8 inputs, cause I'm gonna use my digi 001. He's got lots of mics. I was thinking on using 3-toms, snare bottom and top, kick drum, one overhead and 2 room mics since the room is really good.
Do you think it's a good idea to use only one overhead, and 2 room mics, or should I use 2 overheads, and bus the 2 top toms to one input?
and what mics would you use for a powerful rock sound (like stone temple Pilots new albums).
thanks
PS: the recording will be this monday

Please take this for what it is, OPINION! If it were up to me, I would ask myself what is most important to have controle of? Obviously Kick And either snare top or Snare top plus Snare bottom deserve their own tracks. But, if you have a large format console and a good ear, don't be afraid of the bus! My session would look something like this. Kick (SM 91a) track 1 / Snare Top (SM 57) & Snare Bottom (Senh 441) track 2 / Toms 1,2,&3 (Akg 414's) tracks 3 & 4 / Overheads (Neuman U-69 xy) & Hi Hat (Neuman km 84) & Ride (Neuman km 84) tracks 5 & 6 / Room Mikes Galore (Neuman M 149's or AKG C-12's) tracks 7 & 8!>!>! This will take some time to get set up, but I believe that it is making the most out of what you can. Above all, if it sounds good then do it,......if it doesn't then fix it!! GOOD LUCK on Monday.

This is my opinion: If I have few channels I don't waste them on room recording. I record everything on separate channels, but I don't bother recording snare bottom as I will compress the s**t out of the top mic anyway and it will sound good... And I don't mix hat and oh´s together cause sometimes you don't need to use hat track at all and other times it is very important. About mics - you can throw stones at me, but I have found that those cheap sennheiser`s "evolution" mic´s for drumz sound incredible! I mean for kick and toms. anyway, I would go like this:
1. Kick (sennheiser evolution) 2. Snare (sm57 or beta57) 3. tom1 (sennheiser evolution) 4. tom2 (sennheiser evolution) 5. tom3 (sennheiser evolution) 6. hat (any good condenser) 7. oh L (any good condenser) 8. oh R (any good condenser)
I would keep the overheads wide! ... but keep the drumz tight!
peace.

You BEST tool in the box will be the engineer you are given to work with. (even if he is a junior) Make sure you make FULL use of his experience in that room or you will be making a very foolish mistake. He will have seen how the pros do it.. All you need to say is - we have to record the drums to 8 tracks... he can advise you from there. Are you allowed to use their own in house PT rig? That might be easier for them... ASK that first before you make the pro studio use your 001.

Good luck! & let us know how it went.

BTW if you turn up with old drum heads and *****ty cymbals you will be blowing your chance. Borrow snare drums so you have 3 or 4 to try out & get as many great cymbals & hihats as you can muster to the session. If you are inexperienced with drum tuning hire / beg for a friend to come down who can...

If you arrive with a worn snare skin & dented tom heads the studio staff will think you are a TOTAL moron. (but put the skins on & tune them one or two nights before so they "settle in")

I went to a studio that had a custom one-off yamaha drum recording kit. It was unbelievable. Probably cost $10,000...Huge, great sounding kit. The room was at the TIME MACHINE in Vermont. One of the best drum rooms i've ever seen. Mic selection was like waking to find myself in recording heaven. What did we use? An old 18" tom sitting on two cloth covered bricks for a kick. A 10 year old beat to **** snare, 1 tom off the yamaha kit and a couple of cymbols off the yamaha kit. We grabbed some tube-traps and created a little "stonehenge" around the tiny beat-up kit and tracked it with 1 kick mic, 1 top 1 bottom snare mic, 1 tom mic and 2 overhead mics. The drums sounded so great the studio resident engineer couldn't believe it.
My point: It's not how many open mics you have. It's not about the most awsome drum kit, or the best mic...
It's all about the drummer and the engineer having their act together. You can get a wonderful set of drum tracks in your living room if you have a good drummer and a good engineer.

Originally posted by georgia:You can get a wonderful set of drum tracks in your living room if you have a good drummer and a good engineer.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">True, but unless you live in a mansion, you won't get the STP sound. Maybe I'm thinking too much of the older albums, but I always thought of their drum sound as somewhat Bonham-esque. I second what Jules said about the engineer and make use of the room sound. You might ask the engineer his opinion of the best placement for the kit and for the room mics.

I would never never never bus anything together in the studio. You don't know their monitors, nor the acoustics in the control room. The only thing to bus together are toms if there is no other choice. If you bus 2 Kick miks, or the two snare mikes together, you will have problems, this is really something you should do while mixing.

My suggestion is, that since you already got the studio for free, you hire a good engineer for the soundcheck (maybe one ore two hours. ) There is no doubt that a experienced engineer will get you far superior drumtracks to your tape than if you try something your own.